P G Wodehouse – Uneasy Money

It was Percy who greeted her to-day as she entered the flat.

‘Halloa, Claire! I say, Claire, there’s a letter for you. It came by the second post. I say, Claire, it’s got an American stamp on it. Can I have it, Claire? I haven’t got one in my collection.’

His sister regarded him broodingly. ‘For goodness’ sake don’t bellow like that!’ she said. ‘Of course, you can have the stamp. I don’t want it. Where is the letter?’

Claire took the envelope from him, extracted the letter, and handed back the envelope. Percy vanished into the dining-room with a shattering squeal of pleasure.

A voice spoke from behind a half-opened door–

‘Is that you, Claire?’

‘Yes, mother; I’ve come back to pack. They want me to go to Southampton to-night to take up Claudia Winslow’s part.’

‘What train are you catching?’

‘The three-fifteen.’

‘You will have to hurry.’

‘I’m going to hurry,’ said Claire, clenching her fists as two simultaneous bursts of song, in different keys and varying tempos, proceeded from the dining-room and kitchen. A girl has to be in a sunnier mood than she was to bear up without wincing under the infliction of a duet consisting of the Rock of Ages and Waiting for the Robert E. Lee. Assuredly Claire proposed to hurry. She meant to get her packing done in record time and escape from this place. She went into her bedroom and began to throw things untidily into her trunk. She had put the letter in her pocket against a more favourable time for perusal. A glance had told her that it was from her friend Polly, Countess of Wetherby: that Polly Davis of whom she had spoken to Lord Dawlish. Polly Davis, now married for better or for worse to that curious invertebrate person, Algie Wetherby, was the only real friend Claire had made on the stage. A sort of shivering gentility had kept her aloof from the rest of her fellow-workers, but it took more than a shivering gentility to stave off Polly.

Claire had passed through the various stages of intimacy with her, until on the occasion of Polly’s marriage she had acted as her bridesmaid.

It was a long letter, too long to be read until she was at leisure, and written in a straggling hand that made reading difficult. She was mildly surprised that Polly should have written her, for she had been back in America a year or more now, and this was her first letter. Polly had a warm heart and did not forget her friends, but she was not a good correspondent.

The need of getting her things ready at once drove the letter from Claire’s mind. She was in the train on her way to Southampton before she remembered its existence.

It was dated from New York.

MY DEAR OLD CLAIRE,–Is this really my first letter to you? Isn’t that awful! Gee! A lot’s happened since I saw you last. I must tell you first about my hit. Some hit! Claire, old girl, I own New York. I daren’t tell you what my salary is. You’d faint.

I’m doing barefoot dancing. You know the sort of stuff. I started it in vaudeville, and went so big that my agent shifted me to the restaurants, and they have to call out the police reserves to handle the crowd. You can’t get a table at Reigelheimer’s, which is my pitch, unless you tip the head waiter a small fortune and promise to mail him your clothes when you get home. I dance during supper with nothing on my feet and not much anywhere else, and it takes three vans to carry my salary to the bank.

Of course, it’s the title that does it: ‘Lady Pauline Wetherby!’ Algie says it oughtn’t to be that, because I’m not the daughter of a duke, but I don’t worry about that. It looks good, and that’s all that matters. You can’t get away from the title. I was born in Carbondale, Illinois, but that doesn’t matter–I’m an English countess, doing barefoot dancing to work off the mortgage on the ancestral castle, and they eat me. Take it from me, Claire, I’m a riot.

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